Download... February 7, 2010. Sunday Morning Service. Bro. Dave Goble.
In a war amongst nations, espionage is often a tool in an attempt to gain victory. Double agents and even triple agents where one spy has changed it's loyalties has frequently transpired in the ongoing and increasingly complex efforts to gain an upper-hand in the war of intelligence. As warriors for Christ, we find a similar analogy here. While we war against the flesh for Jesus, it is often the case where deception comes into play, just as with the spy in those double agents. The enemy of our souls tells those deceptive and attractive lies to convince us to accept that which Christ teaches us to war against. The mind as with the double agent spies often becomes convinced to the opposing loyalties involved, or spiritually deceived for the flesh's gain. God has no double agents, He is not in the "spying business, but He does have warriors.
II Timothy 2:1-4
1: Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.
2: And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.
3: Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.
4: No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier.
God knows who His army is, and wants Us to know who His army is.
James 1:8 A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.
God can help us so that we are not unstable in all of our ways.
We need to be willing to conscripted into God's army as a warrior.
What is the only dividing difference between someone serving God and someone who isn't? Sin!
No one possesses anything that makes any difference except Jesus. Righteousness is only given to us by the blood of Christ. God want us to be a warrior for him and not a spy. A spy by necessity must be on both sides at least in appearance in order to obtain information from opposing sides. Although necessary in the world wars that are fought, in the everyday life it becomes too difficult to remember all you need to know to keep up that facade of appearances.
God does not need spies. He knows whose is His and who is not. We cannot attempt to be on both sides and still be God's. We cannot straddle both sides, and still be strong. They become unstable by attempting to live a double life. The variances in a double life will catch up with you. You can run, but you cannot hide. With Paul,.. God told him "It is hard for you to pick against the pricks." God had been faithful to keep after Paul. Before being converted, we are all double minded.
Too many people try to both walk after the spirit and still hold onto the flesh at the same time. People try to reason that God understands both the human body how it works and still hold onto the spiritual aspects. Satan deceives those into trying to both serve mammon and God. Matthew 6:4 No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and MAMMON.
Romans 7 (walking after the flesh) Paul shows in this chapter the dilemma of walking or warring after the flesh.
Romans 8 Here again we see Paul pointing out the death of walking and warring after the flesh and life when being a warrior of the spirit against the flesh. Are we willing to be drafted and conscripted into God's Army?
In another Analogy of the weakness of "double living" Br Goble used the thought of the instability of the earth itself when prior to an earthquake there are "strike-slip faults" in which the blocks of rock on either side of the fault slide horizontally, parallel to the strike of the fault.
DEFINITION OF STRIKE-SLIP FAULT:
A strike-slip fault is a fault on which the two blocks slide past one another. These faults are identified as either right-lateral or left lateral depending on whether the displacement of the far block is to the right or the left when viewed from either side.
This of course leads to the instability leading to an earthquake.
People living a double life leads (like a spy) to that same unstable earthquake condition in their life spiritually. Thank God we do not have to live a double life. Walk after the spirit and you will be stable. God has that experience. Count the cost, it is worth it if you love God.
To think you can keep your own fleshly ideas and still serve God, is a false argument and unstable at best. God wants your heart, soul and mind.(No room for sharing with the fleshly mind.) Matthew 22:37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy MIND. This takes in all of our will and motivations.
I Corinthians 15:31 I protest by your rejoicing which I have in Christ Jesus our LORD, I DIE DAILY.
Paul exhorts us of the key to warring for the spirit is to die out to the flesh daily.
Matthew 6:22 The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.
Single minded, One Master. To be double minded is darkness. It is in single mindedness for Christ wherein is our light!
We also find that in the 3rd chapter of John,.. Jesus giving the deliverance message to Nicodemus, of living after the spirit and not the flesh.
Luke 14:27-35
27: And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple.
28: For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it?
29: Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to mock him,
30: Saying, This man began to build, and was not able to finish.
31: Or what king, going to make war against another king, sitteth not down first, and consulteth whether he be able with ten thousand to meet him that cometh against him with twenty thousand?
32: Or else, while the other is yet a great way off, he sendeth an ambassage, and desireth conditions of peace.
33: So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple.
34: Salt is good: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be seasoned?
35: It is neither fit for the land, nor yet for the dunghill; but men cast it out. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.
This is the cost definition we all must take to be single minded towards Christ, to be His warrior. Otherwise your heart will deceive you to choose a lesser way. To be a humble warrior, you must humble yourself. Otherwise great peril spiritually will come your way as a warrior in this life. Being "critical" is detrimental to be a single "hearted" warrior for Christ. God will deliver from spiritual espionage.
